History GameBreaker / CardfightVanguard

* If [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Stealth_Dragon,_Dual_Weapon]]'s attack does not hit, it can retire itself to call a copy of a Grade 1 or 3 rear-guard from the deck. The V Series [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Stealth_Beast,_Metamorfox_(V_Series) Stealth Beast, Metamorfox]] can have its name become the same as another unit on your field. This meant that Dual Weapon was suddenly able to call another copy of itself until you run out of copies. However, [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Stealth_Rogue_of_Concealment,_Tanba Stealth Rogue of Concealment, Tanba]] could return a normal unit from your drop zone to the deck if any of your units' attacks didn't hit, meaning ''you would never run out of copies of Dual Weapon''. This led to Tanba's ban on October 1, 2021 to prevent the loop and any potential additional problems it might have.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragon_Knight,_Nizari Dragon Knight, Nizari]] has the AwesomeButImpractical ability to force the opponent to give up a total of six cards between their hand and field, but for the extremely steep cost of Soul Blasting ''three Grade 3 units''. It saw little play until it gained unconventional use thanks to [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Heavy_Artillery_of_Dust_Storm,_Eugene Heavy Artillery of Dust Storm, Eugene]], who could Soul Blast 5 to look at cards from the top of the deck up to the number of opponent's empty rear-guard circles, call any number of them and put the rest into the Soul. Alongside Eugene's support cards like [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Fierce_Bullet_of_Dust_Storm,_Nawfal Fierce Bullet of Dust Storm, Nawfal]] and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Howitzer_of_Dust_Storm,_Dustin Howitzer of Dust Storm, Dustin]], it suddenly became much easier to pay for Nizari's cost, allowing it to devestate the opponent's resources much easier than before. This led to its ban on October 10, 2022.

* Nightmare Dolls are a very aggressive deck that aims to perform multiple attacks early using cards like [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Doll,_Chelsea_(V_Series) Chelsea]] and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Doll,_Alice_(V_Series) Alice]] with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Doll,_Leslie Leslie]], aided by [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Doll,_Marissa Marissa]] to get combo pieces faster and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Doll,_Abigail Abigail]] to recycle Alice or even [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Nightmare_Doll,_Lindy the clan's Heal Guardian]]. To add insult to injury, Chelsea's ability to remove an opponent's rear-guard can stop [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Light_Elemental,_Honoly Light Elemental, Honoly]]'s ability to prevent the multiple attacks, and if going first, its ability can be used to end the turn on a Grade 2 unit, denying the opponent the ability to Stride next turn. To cap everything off, if the game hasn't ended early thanks to the early rush, [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Masquerade_Master,_Harri Masquerade Master, Harri]] will effectively guarantee the win by calling out all the Alices from soul for one final push. This led to Harri becoming choice restricted with Alice, turning the deck into slightly more of a GlassCannon to make it a little more managable.

!! Keter Sanctuary
* Decks based around [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Apex_Ruler,_Bastion Apex Ruler Bastion]] will generally play many Grade 3 cards, which cannot boost. However, [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Strain_Dragon Dark Strain Dragon]] can give all Grade 3 units Boost for a turn. This led to the deck becoming much more powerful as they could push for 30,000 Power columns very easily, and led to it being limited to 1 on July 22, 2022, as one of the first restrictions to the format.
** In Japan, Dark Strain Dragon is no longer restricted as of January 1, 2023.

!! Stoicheia
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Artillery_Dragon,_Inlet_Pulse_Dragon Blue Artillery Dragon, Inlet Pulse Dragon]] is a card meant to support [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Flagship_Dragon,_Flagburg_Dragon Flagship Dragon, Flagburg Dragon]] by giving the deck an extra attack and some draw power. However, with the release of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Sylvan_Horned_Beast_Emperor,_Magnolia_Elder Sylvan Horned Beast Emperor, Magnolia Elder]], Magnolia players started using the card for its ability to draw cards, since that ability was not restricted to Flagburg Dragon. This led to Inlet Pulse Dragon being choice restricted with Magnolia Elder on July 22, 2022.
** In Japan, this choice restriction is no longer in effect as of January 1, 2023.

* Also in the English format are Highlander units, which have abilities reveal a certain number of cards from the top of the deck and gain effects if all normal units revealed have different names. Most notably, [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Silver_Singer,_Cutire Silver Singer, Cutire]] can declare a card name and reveal cards until you either reveal that unit or two normal units with the same name, and add the declared card if it was revealed. This allows for some very powerful turns if a player calls the right cards, such as [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Top_Idol,_Aqua_(V_Series) Top Idol, Aqua]] or another Cutire to use the effect again, or the Pearl Sisters, [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Pearl_Sisters,_Perla_(V_Series) Perla]] and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Pearl_Sisters,_Perle_(V_Series) Perle]]. Cutire can be further abused in a deck with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Perfect_Performance,_Ange_(V_Series) Perfect Performance, Ange]], who not only can return a Cutire to hand to use again, but also search any normal unit from the deck. This led to Cutire's ban on October 10, 2022.

With the way card sets release support for a small handful of the 24 main clans[[note]]not counting crossover clans, like those for Anime/BangDream or VideoGame/ToukenRanbu; they have sets dedicated to their clan only[[/note]] at a time, the clans that are considered competitive can change as the metagame shifts. However, sometimes a deck proves to be too powerful, sometimes being even more powerful than later sets, in which case Bushiroad will update the Card Restrictions to limit the deck in some way. Bushiroad does not like making these kinds of restrictions, especially when the game was young, so when they make these restrictions, there's a very good reason for it.

Starting from February 2015, all official tournaments use Clan Fight regulations, which require decks to use cards from only one clan, with some exceptions. (Standard fights, which do not use clans, instead use Nation Fight which restricts cards by nation.) There are other fight formats available, such as G-Regulation[[note]]a deck can contain cards from only one nation, and the card must have been released/reprinted with its nation's flag, which is basically any card that has been released in the Vanguard G era[[/note]] or Extreme Fight[[note]]decks can use cards even if they are in different clans or nations[[/note]]. Since the Card Restrictions list is used for official tournaments which use Clan Fight, this page will not cover any Game Breakers that may exist in Extreme Fight formats after Clan Fight was introduced.

Furthermore, Bushiroad has rebooted the game twice, once on March 13, 2018 alongside the release of Anime/CardfightVanguardVSeries, and again on January 19, 2021 alongside Anime/CardfightVanguardOverdress. As such, there are three main Fight Formats:
* Standard: Cards released for the overDress reboot can be used, as indicated with a D icon next to the card code.
* V Premium: Cards released for the V Series reboot can be used, as indicated with a V icon next to the card code. After the overDress reboot, the format is being supported bi-annually with the V Clan Collection sets.
* Premium: The legacy format, where all cards can be used. For the purposes of Clan Fight, an overDress card that does not have a Clan printed on it (mostly reserved for Encounter cards) can be used in any deck that uses a clan belonging to that nation.[[labelnote:example]]For example, Stoicheia is a nation formed from the union of Zoo and Magallanica (except for the Bermuda Triangle clan, which is in the Lyrical Monasterio nation), so they can be used in a deck using Neo Nectar, Great Nature, Megacolony, Granblue, or Aqua Force.[[/labelnote]]
** During the transition to V Series, the G Standard fight format was temporarily available, which allowed cards up to Vanguard G's final set.

In addition to restrictions that limit copies of a specific card, Bushiroad may also "choice restrict" certain combinations of cards. If a deck has one or more copies of a card within a certain choice restriction, the other cards mentioned in that restriction cannot be placed in the same deck. These are generally used when the combinations of cards together becomes a Game Breaker, rather than any one card within that set.

Most recently, Bushiroad has decided to have some Card Restrictions apply only to the Japanese release or the overseas English release, due to the differences in tournament size resulting in different decks being better in one release than another. For example, because overseas tournaments commonly have higher attendance and thus require fighters to play in more rounds, decks that can consistently make powerful plays are more popular than decks that may have a very powerful early game-ending combo but are less consistent.

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[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Common Trends and Rule Changes]]
* Enabling additional Vanguard attacks, either by standing the Vanguard (allowing it to keep trigger effects) or replacing the Vanguard with another unit (causing it to lose any trigger effects the previous Vanguard may have had), is an extremely powerful ability; a decent chunk of all the restricted cards are one that enable such tactics. Not only does this give you another attack, but it gives you more trigger checks as well, which means the potential for more damage. Often these attacks are powerful enough you need a perfect guard to stop it, and that won't help if you only have one at the ready and your opponent can hit you twice, either time with a chance of gaining more critical from a critical trigger. The "drawback" to these cards are typically at a high cost, mainly discarding roughly two to three cards from your hand depending on the unit, but players usually toss out cards they will not need later.
* When Clan Fight was first implemented, Royal Paladin decks were allowed to play up to 10 Shadow Paladin units, to accommodate Majesty Lord Blaster, a card that required using the Shadow Paladin unit Blaster Dark. However, this eventually led to LoopholeAbuse in 2014 with the advent of the Thing Saver "Abyss" deck, which carefully added 10 Shadow Paladin units meant to support [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Revenger,_Phantom_Blaster_%22Abyss%22 Revenger, Phantom Blaster "Abyss"]] instead of anything related to Majesty Lord Blaster, and capping it off with [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Seeker,_Thing_Saver_Dragon Seeker, Thing Saver Dragon]] to close out the game by utilizing the additional Soul generated by "Abyss" to allow it to attack twice that turn. It consistently topped tournaments, causing Bushiroad to change the aforementioned rule to allow Royal Paladin decks to include Blaster Dark only.
* A common trend recently seems to be related to incredibly strong Stand Trigger loops. Starting from the Vanguard G Era (and arguably during the Legion Mate Era), many Stand triggers were designed to have effects, most notably to return that card back to the deck. This was done to encourage players to use Stand Triggers in their decks as many neglected to use them in favor of more Critical Triggers. With these Stand Triggers though, several decks, most notably decks that can manipulate the deck in some way, found loops to allow players to either gain near unlimited power, an extremely high number of attacks in one turn, or both.
** Starting from V-era onward though, Bushiroad had decided to take care of the issues Stand triggers have been causing on both ends... by completely phasing them out. Instead, they had retooled it into Front triggers, which upon activating will give 10,000 Power to the entire front row. For Premium players, this means that if you want to use Stand triggers, you will have to weigh the options against using it, such as the fact that they only add 5,000 Power to a unit.
* Stalling, the act of not riding to the next Grade, is something that is often frowned upon in the community. The reason many stall is to do one of two things, either prevent the opponent from being the first to Stride or Legion, or to prevent them from performing Stride or Legion at all. However, stalling too long may cause the stalled opponent to catch up or punish them with an alternative way such as Air Element, Twitterun or Air Element, Seabreeze, or to simply use a Vanguard that works without Stride. However some stalling decks are successful due to easy access to skills to quickly stand or call rear-guards, or a simply strong push early game. This is especially jarring for a G-Era deck as most of their abilities are Generation Break locked and thus unable to even play the game.
** With the new V Series announcements, grade stalling has been mostly dealt with with a new rule for Premium allowing a player to Stride if they have been on Grade 3 for a turn, regardless of the opponent's Vanguard grade. There is still some stalling to be the first to Stride, but it can be outweighed by how strong many V Series Grade 3s are, especially since they set up their Imaginary Gifts first.
* Rearguards with the ability to Drive Check. On their own, they're nothing too game-breaking, but in conjunction with Stand Trigger loops as mentioned above, players can have increased chances of checking multiple Stand Triggers in one turn, potentially restanding and attacking with the drive-checking rear-guard over and over again with each attacking becoming stronger, and allowing players to amass large hand sizes. Because of this, a [[ObviousRulePatch new rule]] was implemented, stating that any rear-guard that stands via a Stand Trigger can no longer perform drive checks for any of other attacks that turn, completing its current drive check if applicable (such as if it had Twin Drive but checked a Stand Trigger on its first check).
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Banned Cards]]
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Esteemed_Deity_of_Abundant_Waters%2C_Ichikishima Esteemed Deity of Abundant Waters, Ichikishima]] is an Oracle Think Tank G-Unit released to support the clan in Premium format, with what is probably the most unfairly powerful effect in the game. For a single CB and flipping any card from the G Zone face-up: The player draws a card and ''disables'' the AUTO abilities of your opponent's guardians for the rest of the turn. This means that most if not all defensive options in the game (Sentinels, G-Guardians) become virtually unusable due to them relying on their AUTO abilities to function. On top of that: She also has an Oracle skill that grants your entire front row +2000 power for each card in your hand, and also has a skill that allows you to include the face-up cards in your G-Zone to that total hand count while a copy of her is face-up in the G Zone meaning your columns will be hitting for absurdly large thresholds that are almost impossible to guard against without a large hand (and even then, the Ichikishima player will more than likely survive, not to mention there's nothing stopping them from repeating the same thing 2-3 more times the following turns.) Add that to Oracle Think Tank's emphasis on deck manipulation to increase the chances of checking triggers in their Drive checks, and you these already hard to guard columns made even larger on top of possibly having extra Criticals on them. All of this led to Esteemed Ichikishima being one of the first cards to be outright ''banned'' in all of the game's history.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Luxury_Wave,_Elly Luxury Wave, Elly]] is a Bermuda Triangle G-Guardian that was released at the end of the G-era, yet proved itself to be WAY ahead of its time. First off: Her skill grants her +10000 Shield for each sentinel card in your drop zone and for each copy of herself face-up in the G Zone. While on paper, this may sound like it requires dedicated set-up to use effectively; the clan has multiple G-Units that can flip anything from the G-Zone, along with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Transcend_Idol%2C_Aqua Transcend Idol, Aqua]] - a perfect guard card that can be ran at six copies if it is the only sentinel card in your deck meaning that any excessive Ellys used as the flipping costs and any Aqua that is in the drop zone ensure that the Elly used as a G-Guardian already gains a ''massive'' amount of shield that can guard any attack even after apply triggers. She also has a second skill: When she returns to the G Zone face-up, you may pay a single Soul Blast cost to turn her back face-down (which the aforementioned Aqua also supports via her "cost" of putting a card in Soul as opposed to the standard discard cost) allowing you to reuse that lone copy over and over while the rest are flipped for other costs. Not helping matters is that the clan also has access to [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Attractive_Glow%2C_Sandy Attractive Glow, Sandy]] - a Grade 2 card that while in hand, may be regarded as a Heal that can be used as a cost to call a G-Guardian thereby giving Bermuda Triangle ''eight'' chances to access Elly throughout the game. All of this led to Elly, like Ichikishima above to becoming one of the first banned cards in the game's history.
* The original version of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Flame_Wind_Lion,_Wonder_Ezel Flame Wind Lion, Wonder Ezel]], when placed on a rear-guard circle, can superior ride an [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Ezel Ezel]] from your deck for no cost, as long as your current vanguard is a standing Grade 3 or greater Ezel. It was mostly seen as a gimmick card at the time of release since the skill's main utility was for crossriding and the [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Blazing_Lion,_Platina_Ezel three]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Salvation_Lion,_Grand_Ezel_Scissors Ezel]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Raven-haired_Ezel crossrides]] available at the time were seen as inefficient at best (not to mention being released during the Stride Era). Much like with Kyrph (see Current Restrictions/Watch List) however, this got turned on its head with the introduction of V-Era Ezel cards. Wonder Ezel went from useless filler to a costless way to stack Imaginary Gifts and draw cards with the Accel II Gift, adding incredible consistency to the high-rolling Superior Ride based strategy that V-Era Ezel was famous for. Because of this, the March 1, 2020 Restricted List completely forbade the original Wonder Ezel from being used in a deck at all.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Untainted_Holy_Damsel,_Green_Katrina Untainted Holy Damsel, Green Katrina]] allows you to call Plant Tokens equal to the number of face-up units in your G Zone, and gives all Plant Tokens 10,000 Power for the turn, including tokens called by your other effects. Not only that, when she attacks she can call any number of units from your deck ''up to the number of Plant Tokens you have'', so if you can call even more Plant Tokens with other cards, it becomes even more effective. This allows her to enable multiple incredibly powerful attacks for virtually no cost, all without needing to call units from your hand. This led to Katrina being banned on May 22, 2020.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Violence_Flanger Violence Flanger]] can Soul Blast a Grade 3 to gain a measly 5,000 Power and prevent sentinels from guarding its attack, but you can then discard any number of cards from your hand to also prevent your opponent from guarding its attack with units with the same grade as any of those cards. When it was first released, it was difficult to use effectively because of how reliant on a player having one of each grade in their hand, which would all but guarantee the attack would go through. However, the release of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Greed_Shade_(V_Series) Greed Shade]], which could return cards from the drop zone to the hand, along with cards that improved Granblue's ability to call cards from the drop zone to preserve their hand size, drastically improved its consistency to the point where using it was practically a guaranteed win. This generally led to games where players could stall out the game with their defenses (such as using the aforementioned Greed Shade to reuse their sentinels) until they were ready to call Flanger from the drop zone to finish the game. This led to Flanger becoming one of the first cards banned from the V-Premium format on May 22, 2020.
* Likewise, if [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Variants_Hardleg Variants Hardleg]] is called while your soul has three copies each of three different cards, it restricts your opponent to guarding with 3 or more cards if they wish to guard any of your attacks that turn, effectively preventing them from using sentinels to guard your largest attacks. While this might is difficult to do just from normal soul charging, each turn the effect of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Demonic_Deep_Phantasm_Emperor,_Brufas Demonic Deep Phantasm Emperor, Brufas]] can search your deck for 3 copies of any card in your soul, add one to your hand, and send the rest into the soul. This effectively meant that if you had Variants Hardleg (or had one in soul, at which point you could search it) and Brufas as your vanguard, your opponent had 3 turns before having to deal with an effectively unblockable turn. Bushiroad felt that even if Variants Hardleg were restricted to 1, it was strong enough that players would be incentivized to run it anyways, so it was banned from the V-Premium format on May 22, 2020, alongside the aforementioned Violence Flanger.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Shura_Stealth_Dragon,_Jamyocongo Shura Stealth Dragon, Jamyocongo]] has a powerful effect to immediately reduce the opponent's hand to 6 (4 if a Grade 3 is in the Soul) at the end of their turn, making it much harder for them to guard the next turn's attack. This set it up for a devastating combo with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Evil-eye_Vidya_Emperor,_Shiranui_%22Rinne%22 Evil-eye Vidya Emperor, Shiranui "Rinne"]], whose effect called 2 cards out of their hand and forced those cards to attack, resulting in even more attacks to block with only 2 cards remaining in hand. This resulted in a restriction on September 1, 2019 preventing the two cards from being used in the same deck. However, Jamyocongo's effect continued to be a problem in the coming years as more Nubatama support was released, so it was banned on October 1, 2021.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Evil_God_Pontiff,_Gastille_Daimonas Evil God Pontiff, Gastille Daimonas]] was an insane card from the moment it released, allowing it to copy the effects of any two Dark Irregular units from the deck, resulting in near-unlimited possibilities in what it could do, and with each new wave of Dark Irregulars (and later, Dark States) support making it even stronger, such as using [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Evil_God_Bishop,_Gastille_(V_Series) Evil God Bishop, Gastille]]'s devastating abilities to disable AUTO abilities like the above Ichishikima, give +1 critical to the front row, and reducing enemy Vanguard power to 1, with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Master_of_Gravity,_Baromagnes Master of Gravity, Baromagnes]] gaining even more critical and calling out 2 more units for additional attacks. This led to its eventual ban on October 1, 2021.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Ambush_Demon_Stealth_Beast,_Nue_Daio Ambush Demon Stealth Beast, Nue Daio]] is a G Unit with an effect meant to work wonders with the recently-released [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Samurai_Chieftain,_HYU-GA Samurai Chieftain, HYU-GA]] by Striding over the latter during the Main Phase after it had changed all units on the field to its own name, then standing all of them when it attacked. Furthermore, if it used this ability, it prevented the opponent from guarding its attack unless they called ''five or more'' cards at the same time. This led to an extremely powerful one-turn kill strategy for the Accel clan, pressuring an insane number of attacks, especially when the Vanguard attack effectively couldn't be guarded with a Perfect Guard. It was ultimately banned on October 1, 2021.

* [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Flash_Ripple,_Odysseus Flash Ripple, Odysseus]] is restricted to two in Japan due to the incredible field it can create and the ability to fix the Ripple ride chain. Basically, Odysseus puts one unit into soul to allow the player to superior ride a unit of the same grade from deck as well as replacing the unit that was put into soul. This would normally be designed to, as stated above, fix the ride chain so that their skills would go off effectively. However, it can create a combo with [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Tidal_Rescue_Sea_Turtle_Soldier Tidal Rescue Sea Turtle Soldier]] whose ability to possibly call a grade 1 or 2 from deck building field very easily. And note that Odysseus can be used in any grade which supports the infamous Grade 2 rush game and can go as far as allowing the player to ride to Legion, put 4 cards (preferably triggers) back into the deck, fail to find the mate, use Odysseus to re-ride to another Legion and Legion from that putting even more triggers back into the deck and call the other Grade 3 unit out.
** The final nail in his coffin was probably the finals of the world championships shortly before the restriction was announced, where the second game of the final match was decided in ''five turns'' due to a rush enabled by Odysseus.
** This has also seen a restriction internationally.
** With the new Stride rules in Premium and G Format, Odysseus was no longer restricted, as the rush it enabled was no longer as crippling for the opponent. However, years later, the V Series version of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Thundering_Ripple,_Genovious_(V_Series) Thundering Ripple, Genovious]] would bring it back into the spotlight, because its ability could be used to rapidly accumulate Accel Imaginary Gifts by riding multiple copies of Genovious, resulting in a large amount of card draw and multiple attacks as soon as a player's third turn. As such, it was banned on July 22, 2022.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Interdimensional_Dragon,_Mystery-flare_Dragon_(V_Series) Interdimensional Dragon, Mystery-flare Dragon]]'s V Series incarnation is a Grade 4 that can skip the opponent's next turn if the player's bound cards had combined grades of 19 or more, in addition to its other effects to increase its critical and drive, and powering up all its allies by 10,000 Power. At first, it was seen as AwesomeButImpractical, but eventually there were enough cards available in Premium to allow it to use its effect the first time it was ridden. To add insult to injury, since the V Series [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Chronojet_Dragon_(V_Series) Chronojet Dragon]] would retire the unit that rode over it with its effect and replace it with a Grade 3, players could Soul Blast all Grade 3 units in their soul abuse a quirk in the rules when a player has no Vanguard[[note]]if a player has no Vanguard, they must ride a card from their Soul, but if they have no cards to ride, they automatically lose[[/note]] to ride a ''second'' Mystery-flare Dragon from their Soul and use ''its'' effect to gain a ''second additional turn'', effectively guaranteeing the win. This led to its ban on July 22, 2022.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Current Restrictions/Watch List]]

* As of March 17, 2016, two cards that have been restricted to 1 are the Angel Feather unit [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Doctoroid_Refros Doctoroid Refros]], and the Neo Nectar unit [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Cosmos_Pixy%2C_Lizbeth Cosmos Pixy, Lizbeth]]. Both are stand triggers which returns themselves back into the deck and draws if the conditions are right. Because of how they are utilized, they both can cause an infinite loop where, if their deck is small enough, they can continuously keep using the skill over and over. This also causes slow play which the player can take advantage of.
** Of the two, Doctoroid Refros is easier to understand why is has the restriction. It Counter Blasts one damage to send two cards (one of them can be the damage you flipped over basically making the skill free) and itself back into the deck and afterwards, the two damage gets replaced and the player draws one. If the deck is small enough, chances are the card they drew back is another Refros. This allows them to recycle triggers and important cards back into the deck but that's not all. Several units that gain power when a card is put into the damage zone like Nurse of Broken Heart can take advantage of this strategy acquiring near endless power forcing the player to use their Perfect Guard or take the damage.
*** Speaking of Nurse of Broken Heart, she is currently on the watch list due to her ability to give power to both herself and the Vanguard when something hits the damage zone, especially on defense.
*** Refros is now seen a restriction internationally
** Cosmos Pixy, Lizbeth is a harder nut to crack. She is a Bloom unit (in which if another copy of that unit is called, all copies of that unit can gain power and extra abilities) which allows her to put herself back into the deck along with any normal units of a single name from the drop zone, drawing a card after shuffling. However, the player can choose to send zero copies of that unit back into the deck, putting back the stand trigger and drawing and if the deck is small enough, chances are, it will be another one. Once again, this allows her to cause an infinite loop as long as one of the original copies of that stand trigger exists on the board. This combines well with Sacred Tree Dragon, Multivitamin Dragon who gives up to three units another 5000 power when another unit of the same name enters the board and with easy access to units that gain another's name, this also creates near endless power. To also help the deck, Maiden of Sweet Berry allows them to pull out copies of an existing card by putting itself back into the deck, thus drawing Sweet Berry is the same as drawing a Lizbeth, if not better.
* [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Steam_Battler%2C_Ur-Watar Steam Battler, Ur-Watar]] and [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Cupid%2C_Nociel Battle Cupid, Nociel]] are being watched. Ur-Watar is being watched because of much the same issue as Tick Tock Worker, it is searchable off of Steam Maiden, Melem and can be used to gain massive draw power if comboed correctly. You can Time Leap it into Melem, use the effect to draw, then use Melem to call it again and use another Time Leap to call Melem ''again'', giving the Gear Chronicle player great hand advantage and card filtering as well as letting them cycle Triggers back into their deck (Ur-Watar doesn't specify that you must send a normal unit from your hand back to the deck, so you can return your Heal Triggers for instance).
*** The 2017 January restrictions have now officially put Ur-Watar down to 1 card per deck.
** Nociel on the other hand is being watched because of her interactions with [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Shiver,_Gavrail Black Shiver, Gavrail]], [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Nurse_of_Broken_Heart Nurse of Broken Heart]] and [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Love_Sniper%2C_Nociel Love Sniper, Nociel]]. The former two are problematic because Nociel allows you to trigger their effects during your opponent's turn, raising their Power and making it much easier to guard your opponent's attacks. Nociel also allows you to retrieve any card you need from your Damage during your opponent's turn on top of that, making it easy to block even a volley of high-power attacks. Her interaction with Love Sniper is even nastier because Love Sniper's ability lets you turn the even trade into a +1 so long as you put a Nociel card into the Damage Zone (you can have up to sixteen cards with Nociel in its name in your main deck). Essentially, Battle Cupid, Nociel is being watched for enabling an Angel Feather deck to perform some nasty StoneWall antics.

* The original version of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Crimson_Lion_Cub%2C_Kyrph Crimson Lion Cub, Kryph]] shows how an old card can suddenly escalate in light of new rule changes long after its release. Its skill reads that if you have a "Knight of Superior Skills, Beaumains" on your Vanguard circle: You can send it, and a "Knight of Elegant Skills, Gareth" to the Soul in order to superior ride "Incandescent Lion, Blond Ezel" straight from the deck. While this skill was initially seen inconsistent even during its time (due to requiring two specific cards that had no skills whatsoever); this all changed in the advent of the V Series where both Beaumains and Gareth (and Blond Ezel) were rebooted with (new) skills but ''still'' keep their original names (and in the case of Blond Ezel, also gives access to Imaginary Gifts. The new [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Knight_of_Superior_Skills,_Beaumains_(V_Series) Beaumains]] in particular, allows you to search and call Gareth from your Deck for a mere discard cost, thereby automatically fulfilling this card's requirements. And all of this can be achieved regardless of what Grade your opponent is, and when factoring in the new Stride rulings (where a player can already Stride if they started the turn with a Grade 3 Vanguard): This meant that not only did the Ezel player reach Grade 3 (and thus gaining Imaginary Gifts) at a much earlier pace, but they can also start Striding even if the opponent is still at Grade 2 at ''most'' - and all of this is achieved simply by having the new Beaumains (and discard fodder) in your hand. This made it that games against an Ezel player were literally decided on who wins the coin flip/die roll and if the Ezel player goes first; the game pretty much snowballs in their favor due to speed alone. As a result of this, the original Kyrph has since been banned from being used as a starting vanguard.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Fantasy_Petal_Storm,_Shirayuki_(V_Series) Fantasy Petal Storm, Shirayuki]] immediately became a fixture of the V-Era Murakumo deck upon release. When placed on any circle, it [[DePower saps away]] either 5000(rearguard) or 10000(vanguard/guardian) power from 3 units in the opponent's front row (their entire front row if they aren't using an Accel clan). This allows Shirayuki to either drastically weaken the opponent's defenses or completely neuter an offensive push. To put a cherry on top, Shirayuki's two support cards, [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Stealth_Fiend,_Rainy_Madame Rainy Madame]] and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Stealth_Fiend,_Jakotsu_Girl Jakotsu Girl]], made it much easier to get a copy of Shirayuki to the hand, allowing reuse of its powerful effect, especially the former as it allowed you to retrieve a copy from the drop zone if ''any'' of your attacks failed to hit. (Shirayuki herself could also retrieve a copy of itself from the drop zone if it was the Vanguard and its attack did not hit, but at the time there were much more powerful cards that a Murakumo player would prefer to use as the Vanguard instead.) The card was restricted to 1 per deck on the March 1, 2020 Restricted List.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Thundering_Sword_Dragon,_Angerblader Thundering Sword Dragon, Angerblader]] made Standard Format Tachikaze decks a force to be reckoned with. Its first skill allows it to send send rearguards to the Equip Gauge to retire enemy rearguards, while also fueling its second skill, where upon attacking the player can use a single Counterblast to stand up to 3 rearguards that have 3 or more Equipped Gauge each. While sounding balanced on paper, the card advantage of the Accel II Gift and the [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Tyrant,_Deathrex_(V_Series) numerous]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Savage_Trooper cards]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Clearout_Dragon,_Sweeperacrocanto that]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Deflagration_Dragon,_Bombraptor benefit]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Destruction_Dragon,_Dark_Rex_(V_Series) from]] the Equip Gauge mechanic made it very easy for a Tachikaze deck to field several massive attackers on their first Grade 3 ride, resulting in a minimum of 5 powerful attacks and quite possibly a One Turn Kill depending on your hand. Angerblader was restricted to 1 per deck on the March 1, 2020 Restricted List.

[[folder: Former Restrictions]]

[[folder: Choice Restrictions]]
* Because [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Purple_Trapezist the original Purple Trapezist]] and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Jumping_Jill_(V_Series) the V Series version of Jumping Jill]] have virtually the same effect, they were immediately given a choice restriction to prevent them from endlessly calling each other to refresh a player's entire field and enable an insane number of attacks per turn.
** [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Flying_Peryton Flying Peryton]] was added to the same choice restriction on October 1, 2021 due to its ability to call one of the former two and enable similar loops.
* When [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Unbelievagirl,_Potpourri Unbelievagirl, Potpourri]]'s attack hits the Vanguard, it returns another unit to hand and calls a unit in its place. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Colorful_Pastorale,_Fina Colorful Pastorale, Fina]] has a skill to allow all skills that would activate when a unit hits to activate even when the attack doesn't hit. This means that with Force Markers to power up your rearguards, 2 Potpourri and Fina could work together to ''infinitely attack the opponent's Vanguard until they lost'', by having one Potpourri return the other to hand and call it again. As such, they have been given a choice restriction.
* The V series incarnation of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragheart,_Luard_(V_Series) Dragheart, Luard]] swiftly ran into issues when released, taking a nigh-unprecedented number of top spots in Standard tournaments due to synergy with cards also released in the same set. As mentioned in the Banned section, Freezing Witch, Bendi and Dumphood Dragon were cards intended to support Phantom Blaster Overlord and could be searched easily by Skull Witch, Nemain. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch%2C_Bendi Freezing Witch, Bendi]] was meant to allow that deck to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn two to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dumphood_Dragon Dumphood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. Unfortunately, Luard already wanted to run Nemain due to the free advantage she granted, so it was an easy matter for Luard decks to tech in a few copies of Bendi, Dumphood, Blaster Dark and Phantom Blaster Dragon, meaning an opening hand with Nemain and another Grade 1 was a guaranteed Superior Ride. This meant that on turn 3, the Luard player could Ride to Dragheart and promptly use his skill to Superior Ride [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragdriver%2C_Luard_(V_Series) Dragdriver, Luard]] with two Grade 3s already in Soul, giving all of their Grade 1s innate Critical 2 a turn earlier than that skill was supposed to be active on top of the existing pressure of the Superior Ride giving Luard a Force Gift a turn early. Bushiroad's reaction speaks for itself, only a few weeks after the set's release, Dragheart, Luard and Skull Witch, Nemain were given a choice restriction preventing them from being run in the same deck.
* Overtriggers are PurposelyOverpowered trigger units that give a whopping ''100 million'' power when you drive check them, but you can only have 1 per deck to make it harder to resolve, and it is removed from play when checked to prevent them from being used multiple times in a game. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Zeroth_Dragon_of_Zenith_Peak,_Ultima Zeroth Dragon of Zenith Peak, Ultima]] allows you to place any 2 cards from your deck on the top of your deck when you Stride it, and causes trigger effects to affect all your units at the same time, instead of just one unit per effect. Put the two together and you get an entire field of units with over 10 million power, which is virtually unstoppable without multiple Perfect Guards. This led to them being choice restricted on October 1, 2021.
* The V series incarnation of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/King_of_Masks,_Dantarian_(V_Series) King of Masks, Dantarian]] allows a player to guard with Grade 2 units in their Soul. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Steam_Mage,_Ashur-da Steam Mage, Ashur-da]] is a Grade 2 unit that returns to the Soul after guarding with it. This would give a player a virtually-limitless amount of guarding power in Premium, so they were choice restricted before Ashur-da's release.
[[/folder]]

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Top_Idol,_Riviere_(V_Series) Top Idol, Riviere]] was one of the most feared cards upon being revealed, for very good reasons. Her second skill allowed her to, after attacking, discard two cards to ride a copy of herself from the hand, with one less drive check. This skill was ''not limited to once per turn'', and between her first skill allowing a double draw (with a discard) upon riding her, and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Special_Message,_Ourora her]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Idol,_Riviere_(V_Series) support]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Mermaid_Idol,_Riviere_(V_Series) cards]] providing a large amount of draws/searching, it was very easy to have 2 or 3 copies of Riviere in hand ''in addition'' to riding one as your first Grade 3. Once the combo got rolling, a Riviere player could unload ''three to five'' vanguard attacks, gaining a Force Gift and a double draw every time a new Riviere was ridden to increase the power even more. Riviere proceeded to achieve major results at tournaments until Bushiroad finally reeled her in with the March 1, 2020 Restricted list by introducing an errata to make the re-riding skill a hard once-per-turn.

* Rearguards with the ability to Drive Check. On their own, they're nothing too game-breaking, but in conjunction with Stand Trigger loops as mentioned above, players can have increased chances of checking multiple Stand Triggers in one turn, potentially restanding and attacking with the drive-checking rear-guard over and over again with each attacking becoming stronger, and allowing players to amass large hand sizes. Because of this, a [[ObviousRulePatch new rule]] was implemented, stating that any rear-guard that stands via a Stand Trigger can no longer perform drive checks for any of other attacks that turn, completing its current drive check if applicable (such as if it had Twin Drive but checked a Stand Trigger on its first check).

* Restanding your vanguard is an extremely powerful ability; a decent chunk of all the restricted cards are one that either restand themselves or facilitate restanding your vanguard. Not only does this give you another attack, but it gives you more trigger checks as well, which means the potential for more damage. Often these attacks are powerful enough you need a perfect guard to stop it, and that won't help if you only have one at the ready and your opponent can hit you twice, either time with more critical. The "drawback" to these cards are typically at a high cost, mainly discarding roughly two to three cards from your hand depending on the unit, but players usually toss out cards they will not need later.
** Note that some of these "restanders" do not restand at all but instead re-ride the unit, and unless it specifically says so, the Vanguard is ridden as standing, giving you a fresh new unit ready to attack. A player in this case needs to be more aware as any triggers the Vanguard may have had go away as the Vanguard is a new unit.

** Starting from V-era onward though, Bushiroad had decided to take care of the issues Stand triggers have been causing on both ends... by completely phasing them out. Instead, they had retooled it into Front triggers, which upon activating will give 10,000 Power to the entire front row. For Premium players, this means that if you want to use Stand triggers, you will have to weigh the options against using it.
* Stalling, the act of not riding to the next Grade, is something that is often frowned upon in the community. The reason many stall is to do one of two things, either prevent the opponent from being the first to Stride or Legion, or to prevent them from performing Stride or Legion at all. However, stalling too long may cause the stalled opponent to catch up or punish them with an alternative way such as Air Element, Twitterun or Air Element, Seabreeze or to simply use a Vanguard that works without Stride. However some stalling decks are successful due to easy access to natural rear guard restands or calls, or a simply strong push early game. This is especially jarring for a G-Era deck as most of their abilities are Generation Break locked and thus unable to even play the game.
** With the new V-era announced and G-format rule updates, grade stalling has been mostly dealt with with a new ruling allowing a player at grade 3 to stride a turn after the ride into grade 3, regardless of the opponent's vanguard grade. There is still stalling to be the first to Stride, but sometimes it is outweighed by how strong many V-era Grade 3s are, especially since they set up their Imaginary Gifts first.
* Rearguards with the ability to perform drive checks. On their own, they're nothing too game-breaking, but in conjunction with Stand Trigger loops as mentioned above: Players can have increased chances of checking multiple Stand Triggers in one turn, potentially restanding and attacking with the drive-checking rear-guard over and over again with each attacking becoming stronger, and allowing players to amass large hand sizes. Because of this, a [[ObviousRulePatch new ruling]] was implemented stating that a drive-checking rearguard that re-stands via a Stand Trigger can no longer perform drive checks for the rest of that turn (however it will still complete its drive checks if it re-stood by a Stand Trigger in the middle of its drive checks in the case of Twin and Triple Drive.)

* Rearguards with the ability to Drive Check. On their own, they're nothing too game-breaking, but in conjunction with Stand Trigger loops as mentioned above: Players can have increased chances of checking multiple Stand Triggers in one turn, potentially restanding and attacking with the drive-checking rear-guard over and over again with each attacking becoming stronger, and allowing players to amass large hand sizes. Because of this, a [[ObviousRulePatch new ruling]] was implemented stating that a drive-checking rearguard that re-stands via a Stand Trigger can no longer perform drive checks for the rest of that turn (however it will still complete its drive checks if it re-stood by a Stand Trigger in the middle of its drive checks in the case of Twin and Triple Drive.)

* Bushiroad does not like making these kinds of restrictions, so when they make these restrictions, there's a very good reason for it.
* The fight formats were made specifically to help control these problems as well as having creative ways to build decks:
** The Clan Fight format is the official format restricting all decks to their respective clans with some exceptions.
** G-Regulation is like clan fight but restricts all decks to any cards with its nation's flag (or any card that has been reprinted with its nation's flag), basically any card that has been released in the Vanguard G era.
** Extreme Fight is meant to be a Game Breaker and throws any restrictions out the window, most notably clan restrictions allowing for multi-clan decks.
*** To expand on Extreme Fight, ever since Legion Mate, effects on units no longer specify clans unless the card is a reprint, thus it's easier to manage multi-clan decks.
* In March 13th, 2018, Bushiroad has decided to reboot the entire game, not only sending the anime back to its origin, but having the game follow suit. As such, they have developed new Fight Formats (note that these follow Clan Fight rulings):
** Standard: A modern format starting from [=V-BT01=] and the first two Starter Decks of the reboot. Playable cards are denoted by the V icon next to the card code.
** Premium: A legacy format, every card is legal.
** G Format: A transitional format where everything up to Vanguard G's final set is playable.
* In January 19th, 2021, Bushiroad revealed Cardfight Vanguard: overDress, rotating out the V Series. And because overDress is based on the Nations rather than the individual clans formats going forward will be based on this.
** Standard: A nation based format using cards in the overDress series denoted by the D icon next to the card code.
** V Premium: A clan based format using cards and rulings based on the V Series and will be supported bi-annually. As with before, usable cards have the V icon next to the card code.
** Premium: A clan based format where every card since Vanguard's inception is legal. In terms of deck mixing, overDress cards will match the nation the clan belongs to. For example, Stoicheia, a union between Zoo and Magallanica, can be put into Neo Nectar, Great Nature, Megacolony, Granblue, and Aqua Force (The Bermuda Triangle clan is not a part of Stoicheia but instead spun off into Lyrical Monasterio).

* The V series incarnation of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragheart,_Luard_(V_Series) Dragheart, Luard]] swiftly ran into issues when released, taking a nigh-unprecedented number of top spots in Standard tournaments due to synergy with cards also released in the same set. As mentioned in the Banned section, Freezing Witch, Bendi and Dumphood Dragon were cards intended to support Phantom Blaster Overlord and could be searched easily by Skull Witch, Nemain. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch%2C_Bendi Freezing Witch, Bendi]] was meant to allow that deck to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn two to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dumphood_Dragon Dumphood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. Unfortunately, Luard already wanted to run Nemain due to the free advantage she granted, so it was an easy matter for Luard decks to tech in a few copies of Bendi, Dumphood, Blaster Dark and Phantom Blaster Dragon, meaning an opening hand with Nemain and another Grade 1 was a guaranteed Superior Ride. This meant that on turn 3, the Luard player could Ride to Dragheart and promptly use his skill to Superior Ride [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragdriver%2C_Luard_(V_Series) Dragdriver, Luard]] with two Grade 3s already in Soul, giving all of their Grade 1s innate Critical 2 a turn earlier than that skill was supposed to be active on top of the existing pressure of the Superior Ride giving Luard a Force Gift a turn early. Bushiroad's reaction speaks for itself, only a few weeks after the set's release, Dragheart, Luard and Skull Witch, Nemain were given a choice restriction preventing them from being run in the same deck.

* [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Flash_Ripple,_Odysseus Flash Ripple, Odysseus]] is restricted to two in Japan due to it's incredible field it can create and the ability to fix the Ripple ride chain. Basically, Odysseus puts one unit into soul to allow the player to superior ride a unit of the same grade from deck as well as replacing the unit that was put into soul. This would normally be designed to, as stated above, fix the ride chain so that their skills would go off effectively. However, it can create a combo with [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Tidal_Rescue_Sea_Turtle_Soldier Tidal Rescue Sea Turtle Soldier]] whose ability to possibly call a grade 1 or 2 from deck building field very easily. And note that Odysseus can be used in any grade which supports the infamous Grade 2 rush game and can go as far as allowing the player to ride to Legion, put 4 cards (preferably triggers) back into the deck, fail to find the mate, use Odysseus to re-ride to another Legion and Legion from that putting even more triggers back into the deck and call the other Grade 3 unit out.
** The final nail in his coffin was probably the finals of the world championships shortly before the restriction was announced, where the second game of the final match was decided in ''five turns'' due to a rush enabled by Odysseus.
** This has also seen a restriction internationally.
** With the new Stride rules in Premium and G Format, Odysseus is no longer restricted.

[[folder: Errata]]
* Most of Vanguard's errata is done to fix typos or other small errors, but a few cards received errata because they would have been broken on release without it:
** [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Guile_Shade Guile Shade]], when first revealed, didn't have a Soul Blast cost on its second ability and could be called to any rear-guard circle, not just an open one. While not an issue in the Nightrose deck it was intended for, as soon as the card was revealed via Bushiroad's Card of the Day feature, players realised that when combined with [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Seven_Seas_Pillager%2C_Nightspinel Seven Seas Pillager, Nightspinel]] and [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Seven_Seas_Helmsman,_Nightcrow Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow]] in the already powerful Seven Seas Grade 1 rush deck, you could infinitely loop Guile Shade and Nightcrow by retiring Guile Shade to resurrect Nightcrow, then calling Guile Shade on top of Nightcrow from the drop zone, in turn allowing Nightspinel to be pumped to infinite power as soon as Generation Break was available. Bushiroad responded by adding a Soul Blast 1 cost to Guile Shade's ability and restricting it to being called to an open rear-guard circle, preventing the loop from going infinite.
** Perhaps the single most infamous case of a game balance errata was [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Zeroth_Dragon_of_End_of_the_World%2C_Dust Zeroth Dragon of End of the World, Dust]]. Already widely considered one of if not flat out ''the best'' of the Zeroth Dragons due to its skill imposing severe penalties on your opponent's ability to guard, when Dust was first revealed, it was even more powerful due to the damage-dealing clause of its skill lacking the 'if your opponent has four or less damage' clause traditionally given to such abilities to prevent them being an InstantWinCondition. This was not helped by Dust being accessible by clans like Spike Brothers, Dark Irregulars and Gear Chronicle, all of whom had access to extremely powerful attacking lanes, multiple attack combos, or both, allowing the decks that could use it to push the opponent to five damage easily before Ultimate Striding Dust for a high chance of winning the game on the spot if they didn't get a Heal Trigger. When it was later errataed to add that exact clause, Bushiroad noted that it was a decision partially informed by sheer negative reaction to a card that could easily reduce the game to a LuckBasedMission.
* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Top_Idol,_Riviere_(V_Series) Top Idol, Riviere]] was one of the most feared cards upon being revealed, for very good reasons. Her second skill allowed her to, after attacking, discard two cards to ride a copy of herself from the hand, with one less drive check. This skill was ''not limited to once per turn'', and between her first skill allowing a double draw (with a discard) upon riding her, and [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Special_Message,_Ourora her]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Idol,_Riviere_(V_Series) support]] [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Mermaid_Idol,_Riviere_(V_Series) cards]] providing a large amount of draws/searching, it was very easy to have 2 or 3 copies of Riviere in hand ''in addition'' to riding one as your first Grade 3. Once the combo got rolling, a Riviere player could unload ''three to five'' vanguard attacks, gaining a Force Gift and a double draw every time a new Riviere was ridden to increase the power even more. Riviere proceeded to achieve major results at tournaments until Bushiroad finally reeled her in with the March 1, 2020 Restricted list by introducing an errata to make the re-riding skill a hard once-per-turn.
[[/folder]]

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch,_Bendi Freezing Witch, Bendi]] was meant to allow a deck with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Blaster_Overlord_(V_Series) Phantom Blaster Overlord]] to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn 2 to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Damp_Hood_Dragon Damp Hood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. This turned out to be a problem in the Premium format, since this would allow a Shadow Paladin player who went first to unleash powerful Strides on turn 3, while their opponent was still on Grade 2. As a result, Bendi was banned on October 1, 2021.

* The V series incarnation of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragheart,_Luard_(V_Series) Dragheart, Luard]] swiftly ran into issues when released, taking a nigh-unprecedented number of top spots in Standard tournaments due to synergy with cards also released in the same set. As mentioned in the Banned section, Freezing Witch, Bendi and Damp Hood Dragon were cards intended to support Phantom Blaster Overlord and could be searched easily by Skull Witch, Nemain. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch%2C_Bendi Freezing Witch, Bendi]] was meant to allow that deck to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn two to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Damp_Hood_Dragon Damp Hood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. Unfortunately, Luard already wanted to run Nemain due to the free advantage she granted, so it was an easy matter for Luard decks to tech in a few copies of Bendi, Damp Hood, Blaster Dark and Phantom Blaster Dragon, meaning an opening hand with Nemain and another Grade 1 was a guaranteed Superior Ride. This meant that on turn 3, the Luard player could Ride to Dragheart and promptly use his skill to Superior Ride [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragdriver%2C_Luard_(V_Series) Dragdriver, Luard]] with two Grade 3s already in Soul, giving all of their Grade 1s innate Critical 2 a turn earlier than that skill was supposed to be active on top of the existing pressure of the Superior Ride giving Luard a Force Gift a turn early. Bushiroad's reaction speaks for itself, only a few weeks after the set's release, Dragheart, Luard and Skull Witch, Nemain were given a choice restriction preventing them from being run in the same deck.

* The V series incarnation of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragheart,_Luard_(V_Series) Dragheart, Luard]] swiftly ran into issues when released, taking a nigh-unprecedented number of top spots in Standard tournaments due to synergy with cards also released in the same set. As mentioned in the Banned section, Freezing Witch, Bende and Damp Hood Dragon were cards intended to support Phantom Blaster Overlord and could be searched easily by Skull Witch, Nemain. [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch%2C_Bende Freezing Witch, Bende]] was meant to allow that deck to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn two to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Damp_Hood_Dragon Damp Hood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. Unfortunately, Luard already wanted to run Nemain due to the free advantage she granted, so it was an easy matter for Luard decks to tech in a few copies of Bende, Damp Hood, Blaster Dark and Phantom Blaster Dragon, meaning an opening hand with Nemain and another Grade 1 was a guaranteed Superior Ride. This meant that on turn 3, the Luard player could Ride to Dragheart and promptly use his skill to Superior Ride [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragdriver%2C_Luard_(V_Series) Dragdriver, Luard]] with two Grade 3s already in Soul, giving all of their Grade 1s innate Critical 2 a turn earlier than that skill was supposed to be active on top of the existing pressure of the Superior Ride giving Luard a Force Gift a turn early. Bushiroad's reaction speaks for itself, only a few weeks after the set's release, Dragheart, Luard and Skull Witch, Nemain were given a choice restriction preventing them from being run in the same deck.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch,_Bendi Freezing Witch, Bendi]] was meant to allow a deck with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Blaster_Overlord_(V_Series) Phantom Blaster Overlord]] to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn 2 to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Damp_Hood_Dragon Damp Hood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. This turned out to be a problem in the Premium format, since this would allow a Shadow Paladin player who went first to unleash powerful Strides on turn 3, while their opponent was still on Grade 2. As a result, Bende was banned on October 1, 2021.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch%2C_Bende Freezing Witch, Bende]] was meant to allow a deck with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Blaster_Overlord_(V_Series) Phantom Blaster Overlord]] to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn 2 to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Damp_Hood_Dragon Damp Hood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. This turned out to be a problem in the Premium format, since this would allow a Shadow Paladin player who went first to unleash powerful Strides on turn 3, while their opponent was still on Grade 2. As a result, Bende was banned on October 1, 2021.

* The Thing Saver "Abyss" deck. A variant of Royal Paladin decks centered around [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Seeker,_Sing_Saver_Dragon Seeker, Thing Saver Dragon]] that used the Shadow Paladin legion unit [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Revenger,_Phantom_Blaster_%22Abyss%22 Phantom Blaster "Abyss"]] to build up soul, so that Thing Saver's skill could be used twice per turn. It consistently topped tournaments, causing Bushiroad to put a term to the deck's existence by changing the rule that allowed Royal Paladin players to have up to 10 Shadow Paladin cards in their deck to a new one that allows them to have up to four "Blaster Dark" in their decks.

[[folder: Common Trends]]

** Premium: A clan based format where every card since Vanguard's inception is legal. In terms of deck mixing, overDress cards will match the nation the clan belongs to. For example, Stoicheia, a union between Zoo and Magallanica, can be put into Neo Nectar, Great Nature, Megacolony, Granblue, and Aqua Force (The Bermuda Triangle clan is not a part of Stoicheia).

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Violence_Flanger Violence Flanger]] can Soul Blast a Grade 3 to gain a measly 5,000 Power and prevent sentinels from guarding its attack, but you can then discard any number of cards from your hand to also prevent your opponent from guarding its attack with units with the same grade as any of those cards. When it was first released, it was difficult to use effectively because of how reliant on a player having one of each grade in their hand, which would all but guarantee the attack would go through. However, the release of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Greed_Shade_(V_Series) Greed Shade]], which could return cards from the drop zone to the hand, along with cards that improved Granblue's ability to call cards from the drop zone to preserve their hand size, drastically improved its consistency to the point where using it was practically a guaranteed win. This generally led to games where players could stall out the game with their defenses (such as using the aforementioned Greed Shade to reuse their sentinels) until they were ready to call Flanger from the drop zone to finish the game. This led to Flanger becoming one of the first cards banned from the Standard format on May 22, 2020.
* Likewise, if [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Variants_Hardleg Variants Hardleg]] is called while your soul has three copies each of three different cards, it restricts your opponent to guarding with 3 or more cards if they wish to guard any of your attacks that turn, effectively preventing them from using sentinels to guard your largest attacks. While this might is difficult to do just from normal soul charging, each turn the effect of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Demonic_Deep_Phantasm_Emperor,_Brufas Demonic Deep Phantasm Emperor, Brufas]] can search your deck for 3 copies of any card in your soul, add one to your hand, and send the rest into the soul. This effectively meant that if you had Variants Hardleg (or had one in soul, at which point you could search it) and Brufas as your vanguard, your opponent had 3 turns before having to deal with an effectively unblockable turn. Bushiroad felt that even if Variants Hardleg were restricted to 1, it was strong enough that players would be incentivized to run it anyways, so it was banned from the Standard format on May 22, 2020, alongside the aforementioned Violence Flanger.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Rain_Elemental,_Zarzan Rain Elemental Zarzan]] quickly found a home among decks that sought to either: quickly get the deck to Generation Break 8 for degenerate multi-attack plays, like [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Temerarious_Cataclysmic_Rogue%2C_Hellhard_Eight Hellhard Eight Turbo]] or the loop with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Visible_Songster Visible Songster]], unlocking G-Units that could win games on their own at full capacity such as either form of Ichikishima, could be re-used over and over in Ripples with Odysseus now unrestricted for big lanes you could re-stand...but even without all of that it quickly dug through the deck for a cheap Soulblast of 1, and to make things worse you didn't even need to run too many 'vanilla' cards to make it work - triggers without any skills were a staple in almost everything anyway and were valid targets to call from its skill. Triggers weren't even bad boosters since [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Storm_Element%2C_Cycloned Storm Elemental, Cycloned]] could make them into 10k+ powered units. As a result, it went on the August 1, 2020 Restricted List.
* The V series incarnation of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragheart,_Luard_(V_Series) Dragheart, Luard]] swiftly ran into issues when released, taking a nigh-unprecedented number of top spots in Standard tournaments due to synergy with cards also released in the same set. Intended to support [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Phantom_Blaster_Overlord_(V_Series) Phantom Blaster Overlord]], [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Freezing_Witch%2C_Bende Freezing Witch, Bende]] was meant to allow that deck to ride to Phantom Blaster Dragon on turn two to set up Overlord's Crossride bonus, with the Superior Ride's consistency bolstered via [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Damp_Hood_Dragon Damp Hood Dragon]] to search Blaster Dark and the powerful tutoring tool of [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Skull_Witch%2C_Nemain_(V_Series) Skull Witch, Nemain]] to fetch either piece. Unfortunately, Luard already wanted to run Nemain due to the free advantage she granted, so it was an easy matter for Luard decks to tech in a few copies of Bende, Damp Hood, Blaster Dark and Phantom Blaster Dragon, meaning an opening hand with Nemain and another Grade 1 was a guaranteed Superior Ride. This meant that on turn 3, the Luard player could Ride to Dragheart and promptly use his skill to Superior Ride [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Dragdriver%2C_Luard_(V_Series) Dragdriver, Luard]] with two Grade 3s already in Soul, giving all of their Grade 1s innate Critical 2 a turn earlier than that skill was supposed to be active on top of the existing pressure of the Superior Ride giving Luard a Force Gift a turn early. Bushiroad's reaction speaks for itself, only a few weeks after the set's release, Dragheart, Luard and Skull Witch, Nemain were given a choice restriction preventing them from being run in the same deck.

** Standard: A modern format starting from [=V-BT01=] and the first two Starter Decks of the reboot.

* On the January Restrictions list, one important card got attention, the Granblue Card Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner. This card enabled what was known as

* As can be seen below, restanding your vanguard is an extremely powerful ability; a decent chunk of all the restricted cards are one that either restand themselves or facilitate restanding your vanguard. Not only does this give you another attack, but it gives you more trigger checks as well, which means the potential for more damage. Often these attacks are powerful enough you need a perfect guard to stop it, and that won't help if you only have one at the ready and your opponent can hit you twice, either time with more critical. The "drawback" to these cards are typically at a high cost, mainly discarding roughly two to three cards from your hand depending on the unit, but players usually toss out cards they will not need later.
** Note that some of these "restanders" do not restand at all but instead re-ride the unit, and unless it specifically says so, the Vanguard is ridden as standing. Thus you have a fresh new unit ready to attack. A player in this case needs to be more aware as any triggers the Vanguard may have had go away as the Vanguard is a new unit.
* A common trend recently seems to be related to incredibly strong Stand Trigger loops. Starting from the Vanguard G Era (and arguably during the Legion Mate Era), many Stand triggers were designed to have effects, most notibly to return that card back to the deck. This was done to encourage players to use Stand Triggers in their decks as many neglected to use them in favor of more Critical Triggers. With these Stand Triggers though, several decks, most notably decks that can manipulate the deck in some way, found loops to allow players to either gain near unlimited power, an extremely high number of attacks in one turn, or both.

* Before Dragonic Descendant, there was the infamous [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonic_Overlord_the_End Dragonic Overlord The End]], which was the undisputed king of the Japanese meta ''for a year''. Its self-standing Persona Blast allowed for two Twin Drives if the first attack hit, practically forcing the opponent to guard every single attack from The End. With a power of 13k (when crossridden) it was a powerful defensive Vanguard, and was backed up by a clan that could snipe any Rearguards who posed a threat. The End was finally stopped when it was put onto the Restricted list, and only came off in a (failed) attempt to wrest control away from Dragonic Descendant.
** With the release of [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Dragonic_Overlord_%22The_X%22 Dragonic Overlord "The X"]](pronounced "The Cross") in G Booster Set 1, a Legion Revival for The End, Dragonic Overlord once again continues his reign of control. While he has a few competitors, "The X" is arguably the undisputed king of the meta-game at the moment.
*** "The X"'s dominance caused Bushiroad to limit [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Calamity_Tower_Wyvern Calamity Tower Wyvern]], a card used to facilitate the deck's ability to re-Legion and grab copies of The End and The X (both Persona Blasters), to a maximum of two per deck. This was not seen as an effective way to hinder the deck by English players, but Japanese players typically played the card at four copies. This is currently Japan-only.
*** For those that don't already know, Calamity Tower Wyvern is a unit which Soul Blasts 2 units to draw a card, note that nearly every clan has a unit like this at this point of time. You combine this with "The X's" ability to find a copy of itself or "The End" and you have an incredibly powerful loop where all you have to do is re-ride, call Calamity Tower Wyvern to remove any copies of "The X" to search out with the newly ridden "The X" and continuously take advantage of the draw, replacing triggers and overall have a huge advantage.
*** Bushiroad has also gone on record as stating that they plan to monitor "The X" in the future to determine if future restrictions will be necessary.

* Seeker, Thing Saver Dragon, even without the help of Phantom Blaster "Abyss", has been a dominating factor in the competitive scene since its release in Booster Set 16 rivaled by only a few decks. Like with "The X", Bushiroad has promised to monitor Thing Saver Dragon's future performance and, should it retain its hold on the meta-game, will receive restrictions.

* The Summer Restriction list limited [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Seven_Seas_Helmsman%2C_Nightcrow Seven Seas Helmsman, Nightcrow]]. Nightcrow has a simple ability, retire any unit, not named himself, to call this one out. Simple skill, but easy to use and more or less free to bring out, especially considering Nightrunner is called back easily as well allowing you to constantly maintain board. That being said, Nightcrow has been restricted to 1.
** And as an additional nerf to Granblue as a whole, they also limited [[http://cardfight.wikia.com/wiki/Mick_the_Ghostie_and_Family Mick the Ghostie and Family]]. Mick is a Stand Trigger unit that can be Hollowed, a Granblue ability to forcefully retire itself at the end of turn in exchange for additional abilities, which, when it's called from drop zone and Hollowed, give a single unit an additional 10000 power. In addition, when it is removed from the board while Hollowed, it simply goes back to the deck allowing you to abuse its bonuses many times and set up for a turn guaranteeing roughly 5 to 7 attacks by the end of the game. It has since been restricted down to 1.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Fantasy_Petal_Storm,_Shirayuki_(V_Series) Fantasy Petal Storm, Shirayuki]] immediately became a fixture of the V-Era Murakumo deck upon release. When placed on any circle, it [[DePower saps away]] either 5000(rearguard) or 10000(vanguard/guardian) power from the opponent's entire front row. This allows Shirayuki to either drastically weaken the opponent's defenses or completely neuter an offensive push. To put a cherry on top, if Shirayuki is the vanguard and its attack does not hit, it can ''retrieve a copy of itself from the drop zone'', allowing reuse of its powerful effect. The card was restricted to 1 per deck on the March 1, 2020 Restricted List.

* [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Rain_Elemental,_Zarzan Rain Elemental Zarzan]] quickly found a home among decks that sought to either: quickly get the deck to Generation Break 8 for degenerate multi-attack plays, like [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Temerarious_Cataclysmic_Rogue%2C_Hellhard_Eight Hellhard Eight Turbo]] or the loop with [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Visible_Songster Visible Songster]], unlocking G-Units that could win games on their own at full capacity such as either form of Ichikishima, could be re-used over and over in Ripples with Odysseus now unrestricted for big lanes you could re-stand...but even without all of that it quickly dug through the deck for a cheap Soulblast of 1, and to make things worse you didn't even need to run too many 'vanilla' cards to make it work - triggers without any skills were a staple in almost everything anyway and were valid targets to proc the skill. Triggers weren't even bad boosters since [[https://cardfight.fandom.com/wiki/Storm_Element%2C_Cycloned Storm Elemental, Cycloned]] could make them into 10k+ powered units. As a result, it went on the August 1, 2020 Restricted List.

* On the January Restrictions list, one important card got attention, the Granblue Card Seven Seas Apprentice, Nightrunner. This card enabled what was known as the Seven Seas Grade 1 Rush deck. The goal of the deck is to leave yourself at Grade 1, ZergRush your opponent and pretty much score a win by turn 3 or 4. In addition, since the clan is Granblue, many cards that are dumped to the drop zone can be used later on in the fight, including higher grade units that are superior called and thus bypass the Grade Restriction rules. In addition, key cards to punish stalling like Seabreeze does not work because the player stays at Grade 1 (Sebreeze only works when the opponent's a Grade 2) and finally the opponent cannot Stride or Legion, basically shutting down all G-Era decks. The reason Nightrunner exists in the deck, it is the unit that produces all of the milling and by doing so, calls himself back on the field, no counter blasts, no hand dropping basically making it a +1 and then some. Because of this, Nightrunner has been restricted to 1 and cannot be used as the starting Vanguard.
** Thanks to the new Stride rules, Nightrunner has been removed and can be the starting Vanguard again.